New York Lawyer's Legal Updates

Immigration Law: Asylum In The USA

Asylum is a special status granted to those who can demonstrate fear of returning to their home country due to the past persecution or future persecution. A successful asylum application leads to a green card and subsequently to the US citizenship. Please visit our web page about Political Asylum In The USA to read more about the qualifications.

To file an asylum application a person have to:

Fill out form I-589 (visit www.uscis.gov website and click on FORMS). Each of the fields must be filled out or the application will be rejected. The form must be signed and contain an original signature. Do not forget to staple your passport style photo to the application.

Prepare an affidavit/declaration describing the events that you based your asylum claim on. It is ok to refer to it in your application. Ex. "see my affidavit/declaration for details".

Prepare the evidence: documentary proof of what happened to you: pictures, medical records, death certificates, letters of support; newspaper articles, verifications of belonging to a particular party, church, etc. All evidence must be in English or accompanied with a proper translation. The interpreter does not need to be a “certified” one. It can be anybody who possesses sufficient knowledge of the English and other language and can attest that he/she translated the documents accurately and correctly.

Assemble the package correctly: you need to have original and 2 copies of the whole submission. Plus an extra copy for each dependent.

Mail out documents with tracking confirmation. It is very important to have a confirmation especially if the one year deadline is an issue.

You may visit our Asylum Library for the latest Immigration law decisions on US asylum cases.

A person who is applying for asylum may list his/her dependents on the application and all of them, if application is successful, will be able to get the status. If the applicant marries after the application is filed but before it is adjudicated, it is possible to amend the application and add the spouse to it so the spouse will receive the status as well.